


ten thousand kids in the square (ten thousand fists in the air)

by person_with_a_pen



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Canon Compliant, Darcy POV, I might add more tags later, Not Beta Read, POV Outsider, but for now just know that all the boys are determined and angry, darcy has some thoughts as he watches the newsies prepare to take pulitzer down, i know nothing about printing, no beta we die like badass women, set during once and for all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28878714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/person_with_a_pen/pseuds/person_with_a_pen
Summary: 'Darcy looks round him. They all look vicious, and angry – Pulitzer is right to be scared, he thinks – and every boy around him is seething. There’s an air of desperation, too, though, like if this doesn’t succeed some of the boys won’t survive.'A look into Darcy's thoughts during the printing of the Newsies Banner.
Relationships: Bill Hearst & Katherine Plumber Pulitzer & Darcy Reid, David Jacobs/Jack Kelly (implied and only in another universe), Jack Kelly/Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, Katherine Plumber Pulitzer & Darcy Reid
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	ten thousand kids in the square (ten thousand fists in the air)

**Author's Note:**

> ok so disclaimer i know nothing about printing presses, and also almost all of the dialogue is stolen from the musical sorry not sorry. i also did nothing to prepare to write this and no research whatsoever except for watching newsies three times within one and a half days,  
> to be honest, this work isn't the best, but hey, it isn't the worst either and i will Take That.  
> also i was looking at some tags and honestly i feel so bad that ffn doesn't have freeform tags because some of these are fucking comedy genius they are hilarious and i love them so much ao3 is genuinely the best.  
> normally i ramble a lot more in these notes but I cant really think of anything to say here. the end note will probably end up being long tho. anyway just a few things: this is set during once and for all and it's from darcy's point of view. umm yeah that's it. I project onto my characters, ramble a bit, and there is very little plot. anyway thats about it: read on!
> 
> title from Newsies (obviously)

It’s the middle of the night when Darcy slips out of his bed. He fumbles for a candle in the darkness, almost dropping the match, but eventually it gets lit. He pulls his clothes on hastily – it's pitch-black outside, and the flickering light will be obvious to anyone still awake to see it. Buttoning his shirt, he blows the light out and sneaks downstairs. 

The door creaks, and he freezes. There is a thrill to this, in disobeying his parents and adults such as Pulitzer (he can see why Katherine is so defiant, now), but that thrill comes alongside heart-stopping nervousness. The consequences for helping the newsies would be steep; they are people who are, by all rights, far below his station: people his parents would perhaps toss a coin to but then tut disapprovingly or sneer at as they walk away. Except for those times when they meet a younger child, offering a newspaper or a shoe-shine, with a wracking cough, or a stutter or limp, or purple bruises staining their face, but even then his parents' empathy is soon forgotten as they walk away. 

Darcy shakes his head. By now, he has made his way to the street corner near the Pulitzer home, their agreed meeting spot. Bill is already there, and – yes, there’s Katherine, hurrying towards them. 

“Bill, Darcy, you made it,” she greets. “The printing press is this way. Thank you so much for doing this.” 

“Of course,” Bill says. “It’s horrifying, the way these kids are treated.” 

Katherine nods, her excited jitters tempered suddenly. “I’ve seen drawings.. And even the Lodging house where the Newsies live is crowded, and they have no money or access to medical care like we do. It’s...” She trails off. “They can fight for themselves – they _are_ _–_ and they don’t need us to fight for them. But if we can help...” 

“We’re happy to help, Katherine,” Darcy says, when it seems like she’s finished. They are descending a long set of stairs, and he can hear voices echoing quietly from a few flights below. Thankfully, if he hadn’t known to listen he would never have heard them, so they are in no danger of discovery. Then he pauses, and adds absently: “How did the newsies know there was a printing press here anyway?” 

“Jack spent the night down here,” Katherine answers, a flicker of guilt on her face. 

Ah. That must be Jack Kelly, the boy who has been courting her. Darcy probably shouldn’t know of them, as their courtship is new and as of yet, unofficial, but Katherine is good friends with Rose, who is engaged to his brother, and the information had been passed on that way. He won’t tell anyone, though, so this particular piece of gossip stops with him. 

Finally, they reach the last flight of stairs. A tall boy in a blue shirt grins as they come up to a locked door. There are a group of newsies around him; one is short, with a dirty red shirt, one is smoking a cigar with mud on his cheek, and another is the most smartly dressed he has ever seen a newsie. Blue-Shirt steps forward. “Kath, you made it!” 

She smiles back at him, and all at once, Darcy’s reservations about the pairing are (mostly) gone. This must be Jack Kelly, and the two smile at the other like they care about each other more than anything. 

Katherine tosses Jack a ring of keys, and he and the boys around him look at the keys admiringly. “These are keys for the entire building. Someone’s been picking daddy’s pocket.” 

“It wasn’t hard,” Katherine deflects smugly, but adds: “The janitor has been working here since he was eight, and hasn’t had a raise in twenty years. He’s with us, one hundred percent.” 

“Hey, you bring the fellas to keep us covered?” Jack calls, and it takes Darcy a second to realise he’s addressing the smartly dressed boy, who had disappeared for a minute, but reappeared a few seconds ago. “Davey,” Katherine whispers as an aside to him and Bill. 

Davey nods, joining them. “You could hold a hoedown in here and no one would be the wiser.” 

“Good job,” Jack says to Davey, as he leads Darcy and Bill to a lump under a dust-sheet. Darcy is peripherally aware of the conversation behind him, and he catches a “Good to have you back.” He wonders vaguely what happened between Jack and the other newsies, but his focus is mostly taken up by the unveiled printing press in front of them. 

“Here she is, boys,” Katherine says with a flourish. “Now just think: while my father snores blissfully in his bed, we will be using his very own press to bring him down.” There’s a vengeful laugh at that from some of the newsies, gathering around the press, but their interest is lost easily when there is nothing for them to do. 

“Remind me to stay on your good side,” Jack says. 

“So this is what they print the papes on, huh?” one of them says, spinning a roller. It takes a while for Darcy to register that no, of course they wouldn’t have seen a printing press before, and they probably wouldn’t have had the stringent education to be able to recognise one unless it was pointed out to them. Darcy curses himself; he had almost forgotten why they were here, but he needs to remember that he, Bill and Katherine come from very different backgrounds to the newsies, and to not inadvertently insult one of them by what they would see as rubbing the fact of their different social stations in their faces. 

Darcy inspects the mechanisms of the printing press. It's a beautiful machine, antique, but well maintained for one of its age. “Well,” he says, twisting the handle to check it won’t catch, “I can see why they tossed this old girl down to the cellar, but-” he lets out a huff of effort as he clicks a stray gear back into its place, “I think she’ll do the job.” 

“Brilliant,” Katherine exclaims. “Oh - Jack, this is Darcy. He knows just about everything there is to know about printing.” Darcy strides forwards to shake Jack’s hand; after Katherine’s glowing introduction, he wants to make a good impression, but it seems unwarranted when Jack spits into his hand and holds it out. Darcy recoils. Okay, so the newsies _absolutely_ deserve fair pay and their equal rights, but he can see why they wouldn’t be invited to dinner parties. Jack picks up on his discomfort quickly, wiping it off on his shirt before giving Darcy a charming smile and holding it out again. If anything his shirt is just as dirty, a small part of Darcy whispers, but he ignores it, accepting the gesture for what it is: Jack is making an effort to be nice to him, an outsider, and ignoring what is clearly a social norm or tradition to the newsies. He grips Jack’s hand and shakes it firmly. 

“So, you work for the papes?” Jack asks. Darcy realises that pape means paper, and says, “My father owns the Trib,” in response. 

Jack’s eyebrows rise. 

Katherine coughs, and hurriedly says, “And this is Bill. He’ll be typesetting the article for us.” 

“So I suppose you’re the son of William Randolph Hearst, huh?” Jack jokes, exchanging a look with Davey. 

Bill doesn’t seem to get the joke, and says, “Proud to be a part of your revolution.” 

Darcy can see the wheels turning in Jack’s head, and he gives Davey and the boy with the cigar a look that plainly says _what the fuu_ _.._

Normally Darcy would avoid such vulgar language, but there is really nothing else the look can mean. 

“Alright, in the words of the little one, ‘Can we table the palaver and get back to business?’” Katherine says. Darcy has no idea what that means, but he finishes inspecting the machine as quickly as possible. 

“A little grease, and she’ll be good as gold.” 

Davey nods. “Okay, here’s how it’ll work. As we print the papes, Race, you’ll let the fellas in, and they'll spread it to every working kid in New York. After that...” 

“After that, it’s up to them,” Jack says. 

Darcy pulls his apron on, and prepares to get the press working again. Jack presses the keys to the boy with the cigar’s - Race’s - chest, and nods at him, seriously. Race nods back, and they clap each other on the shoulder. There is a tense determination to the set of their shoulders, now that they are preparing to actually do this. 

Race hurries up the stairs, true to his name. Although, now that Darcy thinks about it, he recalls Katherine mentioning a boy called Racetrack, so perhaps the nickname speaks more about the horse-tracks than it does his speed. 

Darcy refocuses his attention to the printing press. He’s finished his job now: it should work fine. It’s down to Bill to get the article set correctly and keep it in place as they print. 

Jack startles, clearly realising he never actually introduced the boys that were with him to Darcy and Bill. Darcy doesn’t mind; he can infer who they are from what Katherine has described of them, but Jack is obviously nervous about this lapse of etiquette, as he says, “Oh, uh. I ain’t introduced the fellas. This is Spot Conlon from Brooklyn,” (Spot puffs out his chest at that and Darcy suppresses a smile – Spot is clearly a leader and there is an intimidating aura to him, but he is also amusingly short), “Davey Jacobs, and that was Racetrack who’s to let the boys in.” 

Darcy nods. “Nice to meet you,” he smiles at them, while Bill has disappeared under the printing press. 

There is an awkward silence for a moment.

Finally, Bill emerges. “We’re ready to print!” 

Davey and Jack grin at each other, and Darcy _wonders,_ for a moment, because he can recognise something familiar in their smiles that doesn’t quite seem like friendship. Darcy likes girls, of course he does, but if things were different... well, let’s just say he would have no problem with courting a man instead. He can see that in these two as well. In another life, perhaps it would be Jack and Davey instead of Katherine and Jack. 

Darcy shakes off that line of thinking quickly. This isn’t another universe, this is where he is, and right now what is most important is helping the newsies in righting the injustices they and all the poor children in the city have been subjected to. 

The printing press whirs. The cellar holds its breath. 

A sheet of paper floats to the table. Davey snatches it up, then laughs almost hysterically. “It worked!” 

Katherine takes it, and reads aloud. “In the words of union leader Jack Kelly, ‘We will work with you, we will even work for you, but we _will_ be paid, and treated as valuable members of your organization.’” 

Jack bares his teeth in a smile. Above them, Race whoops, “Here they come!” 

Suddenly, the cellar is flooded with newsies, and everything is in action. They stack the papers, tie them, then throw them to each other in a remarkably fast, organized chain. 

Darcy looks round him. They all look vicious, and angry – Pulitzer is right to be scared, he thinks – and every boy around him is seething. There’s an air of desperation, too, though, like if this doesn’t succeed some of the boys won’t survive. 

And that’s just it. These boys are just that: _boys._ It’s easy to get caught up in the palpable determination of the cellar, but now that Darcy looks closer, the oldest of them has to be Jack at just seventeen. Darcy is nineteen, and he has never known a day of hunger in his life, and he has hot baths and servants when he gets home. Some of these kids don’t even _have_ a home. He is starkly aware of the sheer _injustice_ of it all, and rage, mirrored on the boys’ faces, makes a home in his stomach. 

There is dirt on these kid’s faces; their shirts are ripped, patched, and torn again, and in some cases, bloodied. Even Jack’s face is hunger-worn. 

“Old man Pulitzer’s snug in his bed upstairs,” he hears one of them say. 

“He don’t care if we’re dead or alive,” another spits. “We’se practically got to beg to survive, and he and all the other bosses and cops look away while all the kids are practically sweating _blood_ just to stay alive.” 

The newsie next to him grins, a feral smile that promises vengeance. “They think they’re running this town? Yeah, well this town’ll shut down without us. Can’t ride an elevator, cross a bridge, buy a pape, get a shoe-shine, send a message. They won’t be able to do _anything_ _,_ and then we’ll show them. We’ll get our fair pay, and good working conditions for every kid in this city. They ain’t stopping us.” 

“Write it in ink or in blood,” Darcy hears behind him. “They’re going to damn well _pay.”_

**Author's Note:**

> like i said, not much plot. also, the ending might be a little abrupt, but oh well i didnt know how to end it. but all things considered i'm reasonably proud of this ngl.  
> also i fully believe katherine is a lesbian or wlw, and that jack and davey should end up together, but i wanted it to be canon compliant so i made Darcy pan and did the whole in another lifetime thing.  
> i am a huge fan of outsider pov so i hope i did ok, i had Many Thoughts when i was watching the scene and i needed someone to talk through haha.  
> i do have a few problems with this fic, namely that all my character's voices tend to be similar. its something i need to work on, i think, since even though it doesn't matter now since none of the characters are in the same fandom, i need to really be able to distinguish my characters mannerisms and thought process. but oh well ill work on that another day; fic is just for fun and i refuse to hold myself to perfectionist standards that i do everywhere else in my life. it isn't good haha  
> anyway onto happier things:  
> Honestly, I really love newsies, and i really want to write pieces from the perspectives of all the characters, in all the scenes, but i probably won't. even this one didn't really capture all my thoughts - amusingly i spent more time setting it up then i did exploring what i originally wanted to, and the whole piece is relatively short, but oh well. i really want to get to know all the other characters though, and come up with backstories and headcanons, and really flesh them out as we don't really get to see much of their personalities during the musical as many only have one speaking line. in particular i want to see medda's thoughts, mostly since she's essentially the only responsible adult figure most of the newsies have, and i doubt all the newsies know her very well so it doesn't really count. (now i want to write a fic where medda adopts everyone and huge found family vibes and helping everyone's emotional trauma vibes). also because i think it would be interesting to see her perspective as a Black woman in the 1800s who owns her own theatre, but it would not be my place to write that at all. so if anyone knows about any fics like that (i doubt there are but hey i can hope).  
> honestly there are so many lines from newsies that give me chills that i wish i included in this fic. I just... the lyrics are so amazing? 'And the world will know that this ain't no game/ that we got a ton of rotten fruit and perfect aim'? 'Either they gives us our rights or we gives them a war'? 'we've been down too long'? literally all of the world will know and once and for all (and seize the day) are so perfect. i mean come on: 'so the world says no? Well the kids do too! Try to walk all over us/we'll stomp all over you!' so perfect literal chills love it so much. the anger the determination the acting in those lines is perfect and i love it so much i cannot physically express it.  
> so. yeah. 
> 
> anyway i just love found family (unsurprisingly all the fandoms im obsessed with have large amounts of found family and queer vibes).  
> um yeah i think that's it. if anyone has any good outsider pov fic recs, id greatly appreciate that (or found family or any amusing gen fic) in any fandom, but no stress. 
> 
> please excuse any typos or mistakes, and feel free to point them out! maybe in the comments idk (*hint hint*)  
> .  
> in all seriousness tho i would love if you dropped a comment or kudos!  
> um i think that's about it. thank you so much for reading! <3  
> *slithers out*


End file.
